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The beautiful story of Lili Elbe

The Danish Girl (2015) is a fictitious story adapted from David Ebershoff’s book of the same name, which is loosely inspired by real-life Danish artists and couple Einar Wegener/Lili Elbe and Gerda Gottlieb. The film fashions itself as a love story between Einar/Lili and Gerda, who together must confront and evolve as Einar undergoes gender re-assignment surgery to become a woman. Yet, as is often the case, the true story of Gerda and Einar/Lili is more poignant than the fiction itself.

The story sets in Copenhagen, Denmark in the early 1900s when trans individuals like Laverne Cox (Orange is the New Black series) and Caitlyn Jenner had not yet seen publicly. But at that time, Denmark did have Lili Elbe (born Einar Wegener) who believed that she was actually a woman born into what appeared to be a man’s body. These two individuals — a man and a woman — battling for supremacy that eventually marked by Lili’s win. “I am finished,” Einar wrote in her journal in February 1930.

Einar underwent one of the first recorded gender reassignment surgeries back in 1930 in Dresden, Germany. After transitioning, Lili legally changed her name to Lili Ilse Elvenes (“Lili Elbe”). It is possible that she was a hermaphrodite or an intersex person, although it is not confirmed.

This is the first beautiful movie that I watch this year. Along the story, we can really see the transformation and struggle that Lili and Gerda had to endure that was depicted incredibly well by Eddie Redmayne. This movie will not only drag you to understand and feel what Lili had to go through but also Gerda and how her emotions went up and down along the way.

The reason why I am thinking to write the review of this movie is to answer the LGBT issues that brought up by some Indonesian people recently that I follow through the media. Most people are still cursing them and see it as a torment and sin.

If (by some miracle) this movie can be screened in Indonesia, I would deeply hope it could help people in Indonesia to understand the LGBTs better. Hoping that for once you would want to understand what the LGBT people have to go through in their lives. The confusion and struggle that they have to fight within themselves, also the prejudices that usually come from the society.

It is sickening me when sometime the people who considered themselves religious believe that they could speak on behalf of God and act as if they are: judging, punshing, and tormenting people. I do hope that one day I could live in the world where people can open their mind and heart to accept others for who they are.